John Gallagher’s resignation as chairman of the National Paediatric Hospital Development Board (NPHDB) on Tuesday followed a “dispiriting” meeting between the businessman and James Reilly, the health minister, nine days earlier.
Gallagher, a millionaire, had hoped to convince Reilly at the March 21 meeting that the health minister’s planned review of the project was unnecessary. He brought with him the results of a study conducted by the development board’s finance committee, which showed building the hospital on Dublin’s Mater Hospital site would be no more expensive than elsewhere.
Reilly, who promised during the general election campaign that he would review the hospital site, was not persuaded. Gallagher asked for a deadline to be set for the review, and that the board be expanded in order to introduce experts in big-project development. Reilly did not make a commitment on either issue.
According to a Department of Health briefing document released on Friday, the Health Service Executive estimates the cost of building the hospital to the same specifications on a different site would be €50m less.
At a meeting on Friday evening, the remaining board members reaffirmed their commitment to a national children’s hospital but agreed to freeze spending on site-specific work while the review is in progress. An application to An Bord Pleanala for planning permission is likely to be delayed.
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Friday’s board meeting, chaired by the businessman Harry Crosbie, was told the health minister wants the review completed within four weeks of commencement. Board members were not told, however, when the review will begin or who will conduct it. The board was told that Reilly “doesn’t have an issue with the Mater site”, only with a cost-benefit analysis.
“Information relating to the development of the NPH is being collated,” the Department of Health said. “Once this data is assembled, a review will take place, the main focus of which will be the examination of the Mater as a suitable site. In the meantime, the NPHDB is continuing its essential work. Funding remains available.”
Contractual obligations on the development are costing more than €550,000 a month and the total expenditure to date exceeds €30m. Reilly has not met the NPH board but, his spokesman said, “he had a cordial conversation with its chief executive [Eilish Hardiman] and intends to meet her in the near future”.